William Paulet, 1st Marquess of WinchesterKGPC (c. 1483/1485 – 10 March 1572), styled Lord St John between 1539 and 1550 and Earl of Wiltshire between 1550 and 1551, was an English Lord High Treasurer, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and statesman.
Family origins and early career in Hampshire
Paulet was the eldest son of Sir John Paulet (1460 – 5 January 1525) of Basing Castle in the parish of Old Basing, near Basingstoke in Hampshire, and of Nunney Castle in Somerset (inherited from the Delamere family in 1415), a cadet branch of Paulet of Hinton St George in Somerset. His mother Alice Paulet was his father's second cousin-once-removed[1] the daughter of Sir William Paulet by his wife Elizabeth Denebaud. William had six siblings, including Sir George Paulet of Crondall Manor in Hampshire and Eleanor Paulet (born 1479), wife of William Giffard of Itchell Manor at Ewshot, also in Hampshire.
The family originated at the manor of Paulet (now Pawlett), near Bridgwater in Somerset.[2] The senior branch of the Paulet/Powlet/Poulett family was seated at Hinton St George in Somerset, and had lived in that county since the early thirteenth century; the first Member of Parliament from that line represented Devon in 1385.[3]
There is some disagreement over his date of birth, with different authorities quoting 1483 or 1485.[4] A claim that he was ninety-seven at his death would place his birth in 1474 or 1475. There is also uncertainty about where he was born, but it may have been at Fisherton Delamere in Wiltshire, one of his father's manors.[5][6][7]
His father, who had held a command against the Cornish rebels in 1497, was the head of the branch seated at Paulet and Road, close to Bridgwater, being the son of John Paulet and Elizabeth Roos. William's great-grandfather John Paulet acquired the Hampshire estates by his marriage with Constance Poynings, granddaughter and coheiress of Thomas Poynings, 5th Baron St John of Basing; his barony became abeyant upon his death in 1428/1429.
William Paulet was High Sheriff of Hampshire in 1512, 1519, 1523, and again in 1527. Knighted before the end of 1525, he was appointed Master of the King's Wards in November 1526 and appeared in the Privy Council in the same year.[8]
It was said that Northumberland and Winchester "ruled the court" of the minor King Edward VI. Mary I affirmed him in all of his positions. After her death, he remained Lord Treasurer and retained many of his other positions, and even at an advanced age (in 1559, he was over seventy years old), he showed no signs of declining—he was Speaker of the House of Lords in 1559 and 1566. He remained in good standing with the English monarchs—Queen Elizabeth once joked, "for, by my troth, if my lord treasurer were but a young man, I could find it in my heart to have him for a husband before any man in England." Late in life, he opposed any military support of Continental Protestantism, as he feared it would cause a breach with strongly Catholic Spain.
Paulet enjoyed a remarkably long career during the Reformation. Starting out as a Catholic, he was quickly persuaded to see things Henry's way once the breach with Rome had been decided on. He was rewarded with former Church properties following the dissolution of the monasteries. Under Edward VI he became an evangelical Protestant and persecuted Roman Catholics and Henrician Conservatives alike. On the accession of the Catholic Mary he announced his reconversion and commenced persecuting his former Protestant co-religionists, even denouncing Bishop Bonner for "laxity in prosecuting the heretics." His wife also found favour with Mary. On Tuesday 21 August 1554, when Mary went into Westminster Abbey her train was carried by Elizabeth, Marchioness of Winchester and Anne of Cleves.[14]
On Elizabeth's succession, he once again shifted his sails and became an advocate of middle-road Anglicanism. All in all, he professed five changes in religious course. Once, when asked how he managed to survive so many storms, not only unhurt, but rising all the while, Paulet answered: "By being a willow, not an oak".[15]
Death
Paulet was still in office when he died on 10 March 1572, a very old man, at Basing House, which he held to rebuild and fortify. His tomb is on the south side of the chancel of Basing church.[8]
References
^Alice's grandfather, Thomas Paulet (1378–1407), was the brother of her father-in-law's grandfather, William Paulet (1370–1435), making Alice and her father-in-law second cousins.
^Collinson, History of Somerset, Vol.2, 1791, p.166[1]
^Pincombe 2009: Broughton says Paulet was born at Fisherton Delamere
^Alsop & Loades 1987, pp. 333–342: "So when, and where, was William Paulet born? The family tradition that the event took place at Fisherton de la Mere in Wiltshire..."
^Bryson 2008: "Winchester may have been born at Fisherton-Delamare in Wiltshire..."
^David Loades, The Life and Career of William Paulet (Routledge, 2008), p. 60.
^llustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry from MSS in the Ashmolean Museum (London, 1840), pp. 64-5: Patrick Fraser Tytler, England Under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, vol. 2 (London, 1839), pp. 433-4.
Alsop, J. D.; Loades, D. M. (Autumn 1987). "William Paulet, First Marquis of Winchester: A Question of Age". The Sixteenth Century Journal. 18 (3): 333–342. doi:10.2307/2540720. JSTOR2540720. S2CID166056236. in JSTOR
Pincombe, Mike (May 2009). "The Life and Death of Sir William Paulet" (Abstract: Broughton, Rowlande (1572), A Briefe Discourse of the Lyfe and Death of the Late Right High and Honorable Sir William Pawlet Knight .... London: By Richarde Iohnes). Hrionline.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 November 2010.